Welcome to my Blog!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my Blog.

I created this Blog to give an overview of my career highlights and to reach out to like minded professionals as an opportunity to build and grow my network.  I discuss various topics of interest to me including but not limited to my current projects, my local community, small business in Ontario, sales & marketing, logistics, the environment, social media and more!

Please take the time to review my Portfolio, leave a comment or share a post.  I update my Blog regularly so please come back often!

Creating a new Facebook Company Page

Today I am starting to create my first Facebook Company page and I wanted to make note of it to document my success.  I have been using several different social media platforms for business over the past year and now I am going to try my luck with the new look Facebook Fan Page for a new business I’m launching in April 2013.

I have already experienced the power of marketing for professionals using the LinkedIn platform and now have 1200+ first degree connections in my network.  I am now buying into the hype of Facebook and looking forward to taking advantage of their marketing platform.

The questions I’m have about marketing on Facebook are:

• How do you reach your target market without a large advertising budget?
• Are friends usually alright with writing personal and professional posts on your profile?
• How many likes do you need to be a power company?
• Where are the target SEO features with-in the platform?
• Will I get the ROI on time invested?

I’d be very interested to hear your experiences and advice using the Facebook Fan Page ….

Need help with your small business? Sales, Marketing, Structure?

Are you a small business owner in the Quinte area that is currently struggling in today’s every changing economy?

I have an entrepreneurial background offering 5 years of small business experience and 13 years professional sales, marketing and operational experience. I have a diverse background and variety of skills sets achieved by working my way up the corporate ladder. I have worked in consumer finance, retail & distribution, consumer goods and logistics and supply chain.

My areas of strength are:

Sales
Develop and structure a sales call plan
Prospecting and lead generation
Time and territory management
Create sales literature
Proposal writing, presentations and negotiations
Forecasting

Marketing
Brainstorming and creative ideas
Understanding your target market
Create a brand and brand awareness
Develop a marketing strategy
Build a marketing campaign and work with budgets
Use social media, radio, print, mailing and sign advertising
Work with outside agencies

Operations
Operate CRM systems
Create manuals
Training and development
Office organization
Vendor relations
Logistics and procurement

I am currently available for contract consulting work.

Contact me for more information.

Twitter Business Marketing: 9 Tips to Get You Started

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows you to update your world and helps you stay in touch with new prospects — and it’s arguably one of the best and largest social networking sites in the world today. I’m an addicted Twitter user and I’m glad to be one because Twitter alone has won me several business opportunities.

The power is Twitter is immeasurable and you can only get the best of it if you go about it the right way. The reason that some companies and perceptive online executives don’t get results with Twitter is because they don’t understand how the community works. I’ve been a victim of this before, I know how it feels when you put in your best into something, and the results are not forthcoming.

But I’m not here to sympathize with you; rather, I’m here to give you some Twitter marketing tips that’ll make your Twitter marketing campaign a success!

1. Be Smart: Import Your Contacts and Start Following Them

Twitter allows its users to important contacts from Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo. What are you waiting for? Import your contacts and start following them.

2. Brand Your Profile

Fill in all the necessary fields, and personalize your Twitter page to match your company’s brand. Include your website URL and ensure you add keywords you want to rank for.

Pro tip: I won a writing gig via Twitter last year. And it wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t utilize my keywords in the profile section. You could win new clients and convert potential clients into regular customers if you apply this tip in your Twitter marketing campaign.

3. Make It Worthwhile to Follow You

Don’t tweet “Huh! I just finished eating snacks” or ”I just woke up.” You may be thinking you’re doing the right thing for your business, but you’re destroying it. Tweet inspirational and interesting things. Make it worthwhile to follow you. Put yourself in the position of others and ask yourself ”Is this something I love or would be interested in?”If your message doesn’t bring value or impact the life of the reader, don’t tweet it. Simple!

4. Imitate the Best, Stay Away From the Foolish Ones

You can only be successful if you imitate successful people. There’s no way you can be smart and brilliant if you work with block-head folks–you can become vibrant and intelligent if you move with smart people. The same rule also applies to Twitter. If you want to get the most from your Twitter campaign, follow Twitter users with thousands of followers and learn from them. Try to find what they did that you’re not doing.

5. Build Your Followership

The quickest way to get results with Twitter is by building your followers base. Invite people to follow you every time you post on your blog. At the conclusion of your posts, encourage people to add you on Twitter and share your posts. You’d be surprised at how many followers you’ll get in a week!

6. Follow People in Your Niche

This is surely the best way to gets results from your Twitter marketing efforts. Search for Twitter users in your niche and follow them. See who’s following them and follow them back. They’ll follow you back as well. It’s only a matter of days.

7. Be a Viral Twitter User

Put ”add me or follow me on Twitter’’ on your forum signature, blog, business cards and website. Do all you can to get people to follow you. Be a viral Twitter marketer! And utilize twitter directories: Justtweetit and Twellow are two great Twitter directories that allow you to find members that interest you.

8. Understand the Game and Play According to the Rules

You need to play to the game. The following are Twitter rules you must adhere to if you want to grow your followers:

Don’t tweet every 5 minutes–it’d look stupid. It’s unprofessional and may cost you a lot in the long run.

Be careful with those you follow–follow active users.

Be active. Spark up a conversation with someone and ensure you tweet insightful and interesting things. Tweet posts and comment about others.

Don’t spam others about your offers–it looks unprofessional. Rather than do that, pay for an advert.

9. Reply to Tweets Often

Don’t promote your product, company, or service directly. Do it professionally. For example, if you’re a web content writer, write a guide on how business owners can benefit from quality and engaging web contents. Write it like as a blog post and Tweet it. You’ll be surprised at the response you’d get.

Your turn!

How do you promote your business with Twitter? We’re all here to learn. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Link to origonal artice: Twitter Business Marketing: 9 Tips to Get You Started

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Great advice for beginners and all tips I personally use to grow and engage with my followers!

 

Federal regulator sides with CFIB on unfair credit card practices

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) has clarified rules around the application of the Code of Conduct for the Credit and Debit Card Industry in Canada that address concerns raised by CFIB, including the practice by some rogue players in the industry to circumvent the Code by splitting contracts to trap small merchants into exorbitant fees.

This decision will stop this practice from happening in the future. For more details, visit the FCAC website.

CFIB spearheaded the creation of the Code in 2010, and has continued to work closely with the federal government and agencies like FCAC to protect small businesses from unfair treatment by the payments industry. This announcement ensures the Code continues to do what it was intended to do – protect consumers and merchants.

Thanks CFIB your doing a great job!

Link to origanol artice: Federal regulator sides with CFIB on unfair credit card practices

Automate your business: Small or Large

Automating your business is probably one of the most rewarding and time-saving things a small business owner can do.

Once your business is automated, the business can “run itself” to a certain degree, allowing the business owner to concentrate on marketing and sales, improving processes, new product development or to simply to take a “real” vacation! Automation is key.

What Does “Automating Your Business” Mean?
By “automating your business” we don’t mean having a supercomputer process orders, do sales calls, handle accounting and handle customer service. We do mean, however, that you should have a process for doing these tasks in your business.

This process should be well documented and should be able to be understood by anyone you hire (or yourself) for that particular task. In fact, there should be a process for running your entire business, a “Business Operations Manual” that we will discuss further below.

Why is “Automating Your Business” Important?
The most consistently successful type of business is the franchise. You see them all around you: McDonald’s, Orkin, Pep Boys, H&R Block, 99 Cents Store, Jiffy Lube, etc. These businesses almost always succeed no matter where they are opened or who runs them. Why is this?

Because each of these franchises have a “franchise manual” and training program that allows virtually anyone to learn their internal processes and deliver a consistently good product or service. Everything you need to know to run that particular business, from hiring employees to marketing and sales is written down in the “franchise manual”.

This is an important lesson for the small business owner. Even if you never intend to expand to other locations or open up multiple offices, a well-documented “Business Operations Manual” for your company can help you do several things:

Easier management and growth; you can focus on perfecting your product or services and processes while employees do the day-to-day tasks.
Hire staff with relatively little experience, they simply follow the tasks outlined in your “Business Operations Manual”.
Focus on marketing and sales.
Focus on “Big Picture” things instead of being overwhelmed by repetitive daily tasks.
Take a real vacation!

How Do I Start Automating My Business?
We’ll assume you already know how to deliver the product or service you sell. The next step is to create a “Business Operations Manual” using the following steps.

1. Determine How Large You Would Like Your Business to be in 1 to 3 Years.

Do you want to run a 3 person shop or have 100 employees? How big do you think your business can grow and do you want it to grow that big? How much revenue and how many employees? Determining how large your business will be in the near future allows you to get an overall sense of the next step.

2. Create an Organizational Chart for Your Company

With a general idea of how large you want your company in the next few years, create an organizational chart that details what tasks will need to be performed on a daily basis. Examples include sales associate, marketing manager, vice-president of sales & marketing, accounts payable and receivable clerk, retail clerk, forklift operator, operations manager, financial manager, etc.

Once you know which tasks need to be filled, create a detailed job description for each that lists that job’s daily, weekly and monthly tasks and responsibilities; also include whom they report to.

With this organizational chart, you can see exactly who you need to hire and what their job responsibilities will be. You don’t necessarily need to hire for these jobs immediately. Truth-be-told, you will probably be doing most or all of these jobs for now. Just keep your organizational chart as an overall vision of how you would like the company to eventually be structured.

3. Create a “Business Operations Manual”

Now that you know the general structure of your business, begin creating your “Business Operations Manual” knowing that there are specific job descriptions for each part of your business.

Creating your Business Operations Manual can be a difficult process, and every company’s manual will be different. Remember, you want to create a manual that will allow a complete stranger to take over the operation of your company. Every daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly procedure must be outlined for every employee. Every process must be detailed step-by-step including opening and closing procedures, order handling, sales calls, customer service, etc.

Below, we’ve provided a basic outline of a Business Operations Manual.

Introduction, Letter from the Founder
Organizational Chart
Employee Information (protocol, contact #’s, etc.)
Human Resources (hiring/firing, vacations, overtime, payroll, etc.)
Products & Services
The Industry
The Organization
Business Management
Daily Operating Procedures
End of Week, End of Month, End of Quarter and End of Year Procedures
Sales Policies and Procedures
Customer Service Policies and Procedures
Advertising & Promotion
Reports & Records (business reports, keeping records, etc.)
Safety & Security
Maintenance & Repair
Legal Matters
4. Use and Maintain Your Business Operations Manual

There’s no use in creating a Business Operations Manual if you don’t use and maintain it properly. Make sure to update any changes in policy, processes or procedures immediately in your manual.

Also, continually work on simplifying and refining your manual to make it as easy as possible to understand: group similar topics together, color-code different sections, integrate procedures from computer software, fax machines, etc.

 

Link to original article: Automate your business

Youth program encourages new skills

Walking through the doors of the John Howard Society on Wallbridge Crescent in Belleville you get an immediate cold feeling as you approach the large white room equipped with two basketball nets.

While the feeling is cold, something special is happening inside these walls. Upstairs in between a dance studio and a games room is the tutoring room which is slowly filling up with teens.

A brunette boy with glasses, Patrick Thompson, 16, sits at a small square table sipping a juice box with two other teenage boys. The Grade 11 student began volunteering at the John Howard Society in Belleville after his English teacher, told him about the YALE program.

“This room should be filled on Thursdays,” said Thompson.
Thompson said there aren’t enough volunteers for the Thursday afternoon youth program.
“Not many people want to volunteer, because they think it’s a waste of time,” said Thompson. “I’m not working, and its only two hours after school once a week.”
Thompson’s role as a volunteer is to overlook the students during their tutoring hour, then take part in free gym time with them.

“Seeing the kids dance is definitely my favorite part,” said Thompson with a laugh.
The Belleville John Howard building is home to the YALE (youth academic learning exposure) program. The after school program is for local youth ages 10-17. It runs from 3-5 pm every Thursday afternoon. The first hour is dedicated to the tutoring portion, and the second is open gym time.

One of the few students who are able to take advantage of the YALE program is 16-year-old Matt Snider. Snider was encouraged to join after returning from a school trip to Germany.

“I had fallen behind in schoolwork and needed a way to catch up… this program is really helping me in chemistry,” said Snider.

After a quick glance around the high-energy tutoring room, it is obvious there is one person at the center of this group. It’s director of the program, Brenda Gabriel.
Gabriel said the program provides opportunities for youth to discover different life passions, and propel them to a brighter future.

“This is a place where they can feel accepted, and somewhere they can call home,” said Gabriel.

As for the lack of volunteers, Gabriel is unsure the reasoning.
“People are busy, and can’t commit… if people want to volunteer, they will,” said Gabriel.
It’s not in the programs funding to pay for advertising so they rely on word of mouth to encourage people to volunteer.

The John Howard Society’s mission is to have an avenue for the youth of our community to explore, inspire, discover and achieve success for better wellness of life. The society has many future plans for the program including a dance program, boot camp and art classes.
Anyone interested in volunteering, donating or learning more about the programs offered to youth can call 613-968-6628.

Link to full article: Youth program encourages new skills

Property values keep rising

Rising assessments don’t necessarily mean higher taxes, officials say as residents get the word their properties are worth more than they used to be.

Property assessment notices arrive in more than 17,000 area property owners’ mailboxes this week as part of the province-wide assessment update from the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation.

In Belleville, those assessments average a 1.7 per cent increase for property owners.

Since 2008, when the last assessment update was completed, property values in Belleville have increased an average of 8.1 per cent. However, due to a four-year phase-in system, that increase will gradually be applied to properties.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean tax increases, says Brian Cousins, city treasurer in Belleville, noting the assessment notices “don’t mean anything” until the city sets a tax rate for 2013.

That likely won’t happen until the spring when council discusses its operating budget, Cousin said.

“We haven’t even done that budget,” he said. “We take the assessment and do the operating budget and, at the end of the day, we do the calculations for all the property classes in the city.”

An increase of 6.5 per cent has been recorded for waterfront property in the city, MPAC reports, while farm land has jumped by 9.6 per cent. Those increases are also phased in over four years.

Those numbers, at this point, shouldn’t alarm owners, Cousins said.

“It’s all depending on the operating budget,” he said. “It’s just your assessed value of your house, what a willing seller and a willing buyer will pay as of that date.”

The date used by MPAC for the latest assessment is Jan. 1, 2012.

A press release issued by MPAC highlighting the assessment increase reiterates Cousins’ comments.

“An increase in assessment does not necessarily mean an increase in property taxes,” the release stated. “If the assessed value of a home has increased by the same percentage as the average in the municipality, there might be no increase in the property taxes paid by property owners.”

Peter Moran, municipal relations representative with MPAC, stated assessment values reflect the local real estate market, a market that has seen most homeowners see an increase in property value.

Quinte and District Association of Realtors president Sharon Shortt said the 8.1 per cent increase quoted by MPAC seems fairly accurate based on figures collected by the association.

“Our average residential sale price has gone up (in the four year period beginning 2008) about 13 per cent. That reflects the average sale price so that’s dealing with either a $150,000 property through to, say, a $1.5 million home which, obviously, are going to deviate quite a bit from each other,” Shortt said.

Using those figures, she said, the MPAC numbers appear to be accurate though they will not reflect the downturn the local market is currently experiencing.

“The average sales prices have dropped this year,” she said. “The higher priced the home the bigger the drop has been. I think we’ll see that reflected more when we gather our year-end statistics.”

Link to original article: Property values keep rising

Social Media Isn’t About Campaigns It’s About Strategy

When I talk to people about social media or see how companies are using the tools, the pervasive impression is that it is still used primarily in a campaign orientated way.  Social media folks will be required to show evidence of their Facebook campaign or some viral video on YouTube in order to be regarded as a success.

Now I have nothing against campaigns on social media, but lets say you conduct maybe two or three of these per year, what are you doing the rest of the time?  The problem for me is that by emphasizing a campaign orientated approach, it creates a mindset that social media is another advertising platform.  The campaign approach is understandable in advertising because you generally only have a budget to do a few campaigns a year.  With social however, not only is the environment ill suited to direct sales messages, it’s also often free, thus negating the requirement to limit your activity to a few campaigns.

Wouldn’t it be better if instead of a campaign mindset, your organization had a strategic mindset?  The kind of mindset that has social media at the heart of what it does.  The kind of mindset that treats social media as an unheralded opportunity to engage with and learn from your customers, and to use this knowledge to craft a sense and respond approach to strategy.

Here are four ways you can use social media to make the sense part of your strategy better.

4 ways to use social media in your intelligence gathering

1. Find your curators – Information curation has been a part of the social scene for years.  Whereas most of this curation is done around topic areas, if you can find (or create) someone who curates the relevant topics around you and your business, then it can serve as a significantly better source of information than trawling through a database.  By collecting information from a variety of sources you avoid the groupthink that is so pervasive.  Recruiting these curators from outside of the company is an easy way to avoid company centered thinking.  Of course, this curation doesn’t just have to be about you, you can also do it for competitors as well.
2. More engagement – less data collection – Whereas previously data gathering took up a significant chunk of time, with social listening tools, and fine curation, you’re freeing up a lot of time to actually engage with people.  This is the respond part because it frees up time to solicit ideas and get feedback from your customers, and get them co-creating new products with you.  Therefore the ability to engage with a community is now a key skill for the modern employee.
3. Drive insight – Do you still use SWOT when doing strategy?  How about empowering social media to try a different approach.  More and more analytics products are hitting the market that will analyse the social web for you.  They’ll be reading blog posts or discussion forums, they’ll be checking out Twitter and Facebook.  They’ll give you great insight into what really matters to your customers.  They’ll tell you where your strengths and weaknesses are.
4. Drive action – I’m sure many of us have been handed reports stuffed to the gills with data.  Whilst no doubt thoughtfully produced and full of nice insight, they don’t make it easy to actually make changes.  Social media offers you a way to get insights delivered in such a way as it makes driving changes much easier.  New social software automatically curates important information collected from the social web and delivers it to decision makers in an easy to understand format.  The nice thing is that this information no longer has to exist on a ‘need to know’ basis, it can be shared throughout the organisation, therefore democratizing intelligence.

As you can see, there is so much more to social media than merely running campaigns.  Your task is to ensure you utilize it to its fullest.

 

Link to full article: Social Media Isn’t About Campaigns It’s About Strategy!

What’s all the BUZZ about Social Media? LinkedIn, Google +, Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite, WordPress

Social Media has been ever evolving over since it’s introduction in 2006. It is very apparent it is one of the most effective ways to reach out to your business network and clients from near and far. Social Media has drastically changed the direction and platform for most marketing professionals. For better or worse? It’s a matter of opinion.

Currently I myself am using: LinkedIn, Google +, Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite, WordPress. I do my best to stay on top of each account on a daily basis. I use these tools to keep my clients informed on my products and services, my most recent projects and success stories and to grow my network.

I sometimes find myself getting lost in the abundance of information being posted about Social Media on an hourly basis.

I have a few questions regarding my own campaign:

With all the tools available which tools are are the best for my campaign?

Which tools offer the best return on time and invested?

What platforms have the most users and influence?

How does one effectively track their social media campaign performance?

What do the analtyics really mean?

How are the analytics to be used going forward?

and my biggest question is:

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?